Beautiful Santa Monica Waters

shawie · Jan 27, 2014

I recently went on vacation for 5 days in California and captured some beautiful memories with my little Samsung WB150F. This one is one of my favorites. I would love to learn how to do beautiful landscapes photographs. If you guys can please help me...how would you improve this shot, any tutorials you might be able to provide would be greatly appreciated!

weepete · Jan 29, 2014

Hi Shawie,

This is the kind of shot and place that got me interested in photography years ago. It looks like a really nice place to be.

In this photo you have some nice leading lines created by the water, and you've avoided centreing the horizon which is good. These shots often work well in 3rds (1/3 land, 1/3 sea and 1/3 sky). It also helps to have a central focal point to draw the viewers attention - commonly a foreground element like rocks or driftwood are used, but it could be anything.

For me there are two major things that would have made this shot better. I'd have liked to have seen it taken from a wider angle or further back so the land mass was not cut off. The other thing is exposure, the differing light levels mean the foreground is underexposed which is not generally desirable unless you are photographing sillouettes. So I'd say you need more even light levels on the beach. Cameras don't see the world the way we do and it can take a while to get used to what light levels make good photographs too!